With the bike all
loaded up the night before, I got an early start, hitting the road about 8:45
after putting away a good breakfast kindly prepared by bahwife.I was riding alone, because my buddy Gregger had wussed out on me.(Enough said on that subject.)It was a bit nippy outside, but not bad – mid forties – with a fair
chance of encountering some rain.I
was geared up in Gaerne Explorer boots, Fieldsheer Highland pants, Fieldsheer
Zero Condition jacket, Widder electric vest, Joe Rocket Radiant 2 gloves, and of
course my Shoei Z-2 helmet.I
planned a leisurely ride to Eureka Springs, seeking out as many dirt roads as
possible so as to minimize wear on the Metzler Karoos I had just mounted the
week before.I’m hoping these
tires will last through the Moab trip which friends and I have planned for the
end of April.You can find miles
and miles of dirt roads in rural Oklahoma.Most are pretty easy riding, especially with this bike and tire
combination, and you never know what you’ll discover around the next bend –
always an adventure.

Dirt
roads abound in Oklahoma, stretching for miles and miles, fore and ...

...aft
of the intrepid Adventure Rider.

Never
know what you're going to find around the next corner ... like this old plank
bridge for example.

I paused for a
stretch, a whiz, and a photo op at the spillway near Dripping Springs State
Park, then hit my first traffic in Okmulgee, where I cut south to avoid the
great metropolis of Muskogee.I
crossed the Arkansas River at Webber’s Falls, then turned north for Lake
Tenkiller, scrubbing in the new Karoos on the twisties paralleling the east side
of the lake, then again on Highway 10 where it follows the Illinois River north
of Talequah.Now that the tires were scrubbed in, they were feeling much
more comfortable on pavement.(The
squirrelly unease would be completely gone by the time I reached Eureka Springs
and the Karoos would be cornering in the Arkansas twisties almost as good as a
sport tire.Examining the front
tire after this trip, it appears the tire’s profile has been “rounded
off,” smoothing out the transition from the central set of knobs to those on
the outer edge of the tire.With
the bike now handling reasonably well on pavement, the only reason I’d go back
to street rubber would be to get more mileage out of a set of tires.The versatility of the knobbies is only outweighed by their short
lifespan.I can live with the noise
and the handling characteristics if it means more confidence in offroad
conditions.)

The
spillway near Dripping Springs State Park.

On
the banks of the Illinois River, north of Talequah, where I stopped to nibble
some beef jerky for lunch and snapped a quick photo using my camera's
remote. This place was called No Head Landing. With a name like
that, I figured no one would be there, and I was correct. Silly Oklahoma
Bible-belt rules...

Highway 412 delivered
me to the Arkansas state line and the town of Siloam Springs.My ride underwent a radical change here: straight roads and heavy
afternoon traffic.Why are there so
many people living in this part of Arkansas?To top it off, it began to rain on me.It was nice not to have to worry about pulling over somewhere to gear up
for the rain, to not have to go through that whole mental wrestling match of
“I’ll wait and see if it starts raining harder before I put on my rainsuit”
then getting caught when it really starts to pour -- not to mention I didn't
have the bulky rainsuit taking up space in my luggage.Throughout this trip, where I got rained on at least once a day, the new
Fieldsheer gear proved to be completely waterproof.
From now on, my leathers are probably going to remain in the closet for anything other
than around-town riding.

With traffic sucking
in a major way and Arkansas drivers proving they’re as inattentive as their
Oklahoma neighbors (worse, in fact, as I had people pull out in front of me
several times on wet roads), I grabbed I-540 for a wee bit, running north to the
town of Rogers, where the traffic sucked even worse, before I made my way far
enough east to grab Highway 12.The
mountains really started here and shortly I was humming (the Karoos really are
vocal) through the twisties around the south side of Beaver Lake.Highway 23 then took me north to Eureka Springs.Coming into town just before 4 p.m., I passed a group of 5 or 6 dualsport
riders heading south – some of the early arrivals from
backroadstouring.org
out doing reconnaissance.Waves
were exchanged, then I was slowing down for the town and looking for the
Traveler’s Inn.I found it in short order, got checked in, then started
looking for my buddies Chris and Rick, thinking they would have arrived before
me (even though they’d both told my forgetful self that they were going to be
arriving late).Chris was
trailering his Suzuki DRZ400, but Rich actually planned to ride his little
Kawasaki KLR250 from OKC.Neither
were there yet, but I was quickly welcomed by John and Tim, two dualsport riders
who’d trailered from somewhere in Kansas, and their wives who were happy to
tell someone about their shopping success (excess?) in Eureka Springs.A beer was quickly placed in my hand and we proceeded to get to know each
another and discuss bikes.Here’s
where the “You’re going to ride that big bike?” commentary started.It would continue until the first day offroad, where the
Tiger would prove it was capable of keeping up with all the little KLRs, KLXs,
DRZs, etc.(The KLR 650 was by far
the most represented bike at the rally -- probably 75% of the bikes there.Oddly enough, there were no BMWs or KTMs represented, making the Tiger
the only big adventure bike in attendance.)The Tiger drew a lot of attention this whole trip – everyone wanted to
check it out and ask questions.There
was one other Tiger in the group (of about 35 riders who showed up), an orange
’05 model running Tourances (more or less a street tire).I was impressed by the fact that this guy basically went everywhere
everyone else went, running on those tires, proof positive that the Tiger makes
for a decent adventure/dualsport motorcycle.He might not have been as fast as I was offroad, because I was running on
knobbies, but he was certainly just as capable of getting from point A to point
B with everyone else.

Chris and Rich
eventually arrived.Rich and I helped Chris unload his bike from the trailer.
(You might recall Chris from my Colorado tour last summer.) A bunch of us went to dinner and then most of the evening was spent
standing in the parking lot meeting all the other riders, talking bikes, and
eyeballing scooters.It was cold and raining, but what the heck.Eventually, I retired to my room, crawled under the covers, and tried to
sleep.It wasn’t easy.I was too damn anxious about the coming ride…

My friend Rich arrives on his Kawasaki
KLR250 and parks next to the Tiger in front of our hotel rooms.

Friday-Saturday,
25-26 Mar 05, Ozark Mountains, 399
miles.

Continental breakfast
at 6:30.Riders’ meeting at 7:30.Kickstands up for a brisk early morning start at 8.Temp’s in the upper thirties/low forties again, but the thunderstorms
that had rumbled through the mountains all night were gone for the moment,
leaving behind a dense fog that would make the forest trails seem rather surreal that
morning.I dried off my
rain-splattered saddle, mirrors, and gauges, then mounted up, plugged in my
heated vest, and fired up my heated grips.“Ahhhhh…”The riders
on either side of me were shivering.Heh
heh.

Dave, our intrepid
leader, decided to break everyone into three groups: slow, medium, and fast.The slow group, which would include a few guys riding with their wives on
back, would stick pretty much to pavement and easy gravel roads – scratch
that!The other two groups would
stick to the boonies, each riding the same route, but at a slightly different
pace.Dave would lead the fast
group and leaders were drafted for the other two groups.Rich and I decided to ride with the middle group, while Chris opted for
the fast boys.In short order, we
were all roaring out of Eureka Springs, bound for the Ozark National Forest to
the south.I was impressed with the
pavement speed maintained by all these little 250s and 400s.We were doing 60 and 70 mph through the twisties on Highway 23 – a
decent enough pace.The little 250s
must have really been wound up, though, rev’ing somewhere in the 7 or 8
thousand rpm range, I would guess.The
Tiger was loping along at about 4,000 rpm, if that.Most curves were taken at about 20 over the posted speed –
not quite the double I’d be doing on the Tiger if I was riding alone (and
certainly nowhere near the speeds my ZZR buddies and I do when riding in Arkansas), but a
fun pace.

In short order we
were on dirt and gravel and we had our first rider go down.Guess who it was?This was
on a wide gravel road which ended at a locked gate and private property.Time to turn around and find another route.This would actually happen a LOT that morning.No one had scouted out the route ahead of time to eliminate all these
detours.And our group’s ride leader had been drafted at the last
moment and didn’t really know the route.Then his GPS started acting up.The
result was that we made about a dozen u-turns that morning as we missed turn after
turn.With a 50/50 chance of being
right, you’d think the guy would occasionally take the correct fork in a
trail, but it seemed every single time we went one way, you could pretty much
guarantee that 100 yards down the trail he’d realize his error and hook a
bitch.Making a u-turn on tight
little forest trails isn’t too difficult on the little KLRs and DRZs, but try
it on the Tiger – especially after your confidence has been shattered … but
I’m getting ahead of myself.I
was going to talk about that first … uh … incident.

A very muddy Triumph Tiger.

So we’re doing a
u-turn on this gravel road.It’s
a nice, wide road.No reason even
the Tiger couldn’t make an easy u-turn and stay on the road.But I’m being lazy.I’m
running offroad tires, after all.I
decide to just make a big, wide, lazyass turn through the ditch and across the
grass.The ditch turns out to be
slippery gumbo.Everything’s wet,
of course.It had been raining all
night long and for who knows how many days before.The Tiger’s front tire slips out from under me faster than I can think
“Oh shit!”Plop!I am instantly down in the mud.What
the hell?!?!?How embarrassing is this?I can imagine all the other riders thinking, “Well, here we go.We’re going to be watching this all day long.What was he thinking, bringing that big, heavy bike out here?”

I squirmed out from
under the bike, hit the kill switch ‘cause the rear tire was spinning
uselessly, and tried to pick the bike up, but in the slippery muck I couldn’t
get my footing.Two other riders
came to my aid, and together we got the bike on its feet and pushed it back on
the gravel road.The left side of
the bike was coated in gumbo (that would harden with a cement-like consistency
over the next few hours).My boots were coated in the same, as was my left leg.Wonderful.

I hit the starter
switch and the starter motor did a little “Lemme think about this for a
minute.”Crap.I tried again.Waaaa …
Waaaaa … Nothing.Again.A couple weak turns, then nothing.Shit.I’ve got ten other riders sitting there watching me.The first half of our group is gone, the riders to the front having
ignored that “watch for the riders behind you in your mirrors” instruction
that we were all given that morning.

For the next hour, we
struggled to start my bike.Reasoning
that my old battery hadn’t cared at all for the drop and that my running
electric gear and heated grips that morning had taken the alternator’s full
output, meaning the battery wasn’t getting charged, we started scrambling for
jumper cables.Several guys
suggested push starting, but I’m pretty sure the Tiger, being fuel-injected,
will not start that way.Still,
they insisted I try.What the hell,
I wasn’t the one who had to push, might as well try. Several attempts later,
with the other guys all huffing and puffing now, it was obvious that push starting wasn’t going to work.One of the riders went to a convenience store up the road and borrowed
some cables.We jump started my
Tiger off the other Tiger.Reluctantly,
my bike started, refused to idle, died in a cloud of white smoke.We tried again.I raced the engine to keep it running while it belched a
cloud that surely hastened global warming.“Man, you’ve blown a ring or something,” several guys suggested.No, I assured them, while the bike was on its side, oil was flowing past
the crankcase breather or something and into the airbox (trying to act like I
know what I’m talking about when in truth I am but the most rudimentary of
carport mechanics) and it’s now being sucked in and burned off.It’ll quit smoking in a minute or two, I said.They didn’t look convinced.This
happened when I dropped my ZZR once, though, so I had a little bit of experience
with it.On the ZZR, I had oil
draining from one of the drain tubes from my air box.Checking the Tiger’s drain tube, I saw the same thing. Oil
was leaking out.

Two
Tigers in the Ozarks ... but the pretty orange one doesn't belong to my
buddy Greg. ::sigh::

Nearly an hour after
the drop, the rest of our group finally realized we were missing and doubled
back to find us.“What happened?Oh,
one of the Tigers … yeah, okay.Gotcha.”I could just imagine all the comments being made out of my hearing.“Big bike has no place being out here.”The truth, of course, is that I made a dumbass move and paid for it.

Eventually, we were
moving again, me covering our backtrail with a cloud of white smoke that would
have made James Bond proud.“Q,
the bloody smoke screen is brilliant!”Eventually,
it cleared up, though, and the bike started running fine.I’d have to spend the rest of the day riding like I knew what I was
doing, though, to keep the rest of the guys from thinking I’m an idiot.Of course, now my confidence was pretty much shattered when it came to
slow speed turns.And we’ve got
this leader who doesn’t know where he’s going and makes one false turn after
another after another after another …Let
me describe one for you:

We take a narrow
little forest trail up the side of a mountain.The trail is rocks completely covered in wet leaves.Slippery as snot.The rear
end of the Tiger is fishtailing back and forth, slipping on leaves and rocks
that roll out from under the rear tire, but I stay on the gas, stand on the
pegs, and keep my weight as far back as possible in an attempt to help the rear
wheel maintain traction.Wait, here
come the first few riders back down the trail (one of these guys actually
slammed into my leg in passing and nearly ran me off the trail!), having
discovered it’s blocked somewhere up ahead.Shit.This is no place to be
turning around.As one rider passes
me, I ask if there’s more room to turn around up ahead.“Same up there as it is down here,” he replies.Fuck.I just know I am going
to crash here.Slippery leaves.Barely 8 feet of trail (in which to turn around a bike that’s something
like 83 inches long).A good 30 degree slope.I sit and wait for the riders ahead of me to turn around.One of them goes down – Nate, a KLX rider from OKC that I’d just met.He actually torques his front end out of alignment in the spill and later
has
to wrench it back using a tree.I
drop my kickstand and try to get off the Tiger to go help Nate get his bike up.The trail is so steep that my bike starts sliding downhill.
I struggle with it, slipping and sliding myself, losing two or three feet of
trail as I slide. I can’t leave the bike in gear (using the
transmission to help keep it place) and switch it off, because I’m worried that
it won’t start back up.As it
slides, the kickstand digs into the ground, finally lodging against a large
rock.With the bike now situated, I
go help Nate pick his bike up.Then
I go back to get on mine and execute the terrifying u-turn that awaits.

Forget the u-turn,
though.I can’t get my kickstand
up.It has dug in backwards among
the rocks and refuses to kick up.I
try to dig the rocks away with my toe, but it ain’t working.I try to lean the bike to the right to get more clearance on the
kickstand side, but I’m on the far right side of the trail (having been
setting up for the U-ey) and the trail slopes away down the side of the
mountain.There’s nothing but
slippery wet leaves under my foot and if I lean the bike any more, my foot’s
going to go out and the Tiger and I are going to be tumbling down the side of
the mountain, banging off trees.I
need to move the bike forward to dislodge the kickstand.I try pushing, but the trail is too steep, the bike is too heavy, and the
leaves are too slippery.I stomp it
into first gear, thinking I’ll ride it forward, but of course that won’t
work and I’d know that if I wasn’t so flustered.All modern era motorcycles have a safety switch on the kickstand which
won’t allow the bike to be driven if the kickstand is down.As I ease out the clutch, my bike promptly shuts itself off, penalty for
me being an idiot.Fortunately, when I
stab the starter button, it fires right back up.

By this time, another
rider has come to my aid.He digs
away some of the rocks, kicks my stand repeatedly like a recalcitrant dog, until
it finally folds up against the bike.Great,
now all I have to do is execute the dreaded u-turn … which I actually manage
to do without going down, despite the leaves, the slope, the fact that I’m
huffing and puffing and sweating now under my gear, etc.Whew!What next?

Mud.You learn quick that the dry line isn’t necessarily the safe line.You see two wheel tracks (made by four-wheeled vehicles) with
standing water and think, “Hey, I could slip right between those two
puddles.”Wrong.Inevitably, your rear tire is gonna slip to one side or the other,
dropping into the rut.You counter
this by keeping the front wheel straight and staying on the throttle, but your
front tire decides to slip down into the opposite rut.Suddenly you’re sideways on the trail, mud flying everywhere.Chop the throttle and you’re going down for sure as weight transfers to
the front end and it washes out on you.So you continue to
force the front wheel down the trail, meaning the rear end swaps ruts, tossing
your ass in the air, sending your legs out to the sides in a squid-like akimbo
dance for equilibrium.It’s
pretty funny to watch from behind (as a couple chuckling riders were kind enough
to tell me).I
watched a KLR rider do it right in front of me.He was tossed over the handlebars and did a face plant right in the mud.The bike came down on him, spraining his ankle.I managed to keep from both running him over and going down myself in the
same mud as I braked. I parked my bike.Ran to his aid.Another
guy and I got his bike off him, so he could sit up and dig the mud out of his
once nice-and-shiny red Bell helmet. After 20 minutes or so, he was able to get
back in the saddle, but he wasn’t back for day 2.Twisted ankle. (Addendum: This guy -- extremely nice fellow, btw --
emailed me several weeks after the ride to tell me that his ankle was actually
broken in two places and that he'd be laid up for six weeks. Ouch. Also,
he was riding a KLX, not a KLR as I originally reported.)

You see a lot of old shacks in the
Arkansas hills ... and in the back of your mind you can't help but hear
"Dueling Banjos," the theme music from the movie Deliverance.

Creeks and rivers.Oh boy.I remember getting
excited about the little creek I crossed in Oklahoma a few weeks ago.Four inches of water and my heart was hammering.Splish splash and it was all over.Didn’t
even get my boots wet. Ha!In Arkansas, we crossed more little creeks and streams than I could
count.And we crossed a couple
little rivers.18 inches deep.Forty feet across.You
watch the bikes in front of you and try to stay in the same line they took.A boulder concealed beneath the surface is going to take you down, of
course.Water sucked into an engine
is not a good thing.Second day
out, a rider on a KLR experienced this.He
hit a rock in more than a foot of water and went down.They had to pull his plug (single cylinder engine) and crank out the
water.Took 30 minutes or more to
get his bike running again.And he
spent the remainder of the day completely soaked, cold, and miserable (well, as
miserable as you get on a motorcycle).My
philosophy on the river crossings was to gas the snot outta the Tiger, hoping to
ride it over anything that might be lurking up in my path.I knew if the Tiger went down in the water, I was totally screwed.First of all, it’s a chore to get to my plugs (and there are three of
them).You have to remove the tank and tear half the bike apart.Plus, I didn’t even have the tools with me to do it, as the
Tiger has those annoying Torx bits all over the place, including the tank
fasteners.No, if the Tiger had
gone down in water and had a good drink, I’d have been trying to find some way
to get it towed down out of the mountains.So I’d scream “Banzai!” and plow through like a bat outta hell,
careening up the far bank on one wheel in a great spray of water.In the deep water, the wave created by the Tiger’s mad plunge was
massive.It crested up over the
fairing, spraying into my face, blinding me (I had tipped up my visor),
drenching my tankbag and everything in it, pouring down the front of my jacket
and into my lap, rushing in over the tops of my boots and soaking my feet.Riders watching from the opposite bank said they couldn’t see anything
but a giant tsunami of water when the Tiger came through.But I stayed up.And, holy
shit, was it fun! Pity no one got a
good photo, though.

A drowned KLR, set on its side to try and
get the water to drain from the engine.

Water!

Water!

Everywhere!

We had lunch that
first day in Jasper at a restaurant hanging off the side of a mountain.The view was spectacular.The
chicken-fried chicken and gravy was yummy.Then it was back into the woods for more riding up and down the hills.The Karoos were gripping wonderfully.I had no trouble keeping up with the smaller bikes, though it did sound
like the chain, sprockets, and suspension on the Tiger were taking quite a
beating. I think they all thought they’d be leaving me behind, but
there I was in their rearview mirrors all the time.Even had a couple riders wave me by and one little Kawasaki Sherpa rider
got annoyed at me and made some comment later about that “damn big Tiger”
riding all over his ass.Well, pick
up the speed or get outta the way, little Sherpa dude!Tigers eat Sherpas for breakfast, doncha know.LOL.

Lunch in Jasper at the Cliff House Inn.

The view was magnificent.

By that afternoon,
the first and second group had pretty much merged, though we were scattered over
quite a distance.The u-turns
continued and I still sucked at making them, but I didn’t go down again.Eventually, we crawled down out of the hills and hit pavement again,
opening up the bikes for a spirited run back to Eureka Springs.We were all wet and cold.My
feet were frozen.Naturally, my
electric vest was rolled up and stuck away in my tank bag, because I had taken
it off earlier in the day.My hands
were warm, though. Several riders commented that the ride back to the hotel that
evening was the coldest ride they’d ever been on.

Back at the hotel, I
had to take a hot shower to get warm.I
placed my gloves and boots on the heater and fired it up to dry them out.The Tiger, plastered in mud, sat out in front of my room in the rain,
looking a bit smug surrounded by all those smaller bikes.

Boots
and gloves drying on the heater. Those were new boots the day before...

That night after
dinner, we all sat around telling war stories and watching the motorcycle
documentary On Any Sunday, which
one of the other riders had brought along.Eventually, I hit the sack.As
I lay there, I could still feel the bike moving underneath me.I got up several times during the night and peeked out the window at the
Tiger.I wasn’t worried that
someone would mess with the bike or anything, I just felt the need to … I
dunno … say, “How ya holdin’ out there, buddy?” or something.“Sorry you can’t come in the room with me.”“You did great today and I’m proud of you.”
(The wife thinks I'm totally nuts for talking to my bikes.) It had been an awesome day.

Next morning: up at
the crack of dawn.Cold and wet
again, of course.I cleaned my
chain with WD-40, then gave it a good coating of Maxim chain wax.Rode to a gas station and topped off (never can understand those
inconsiderate riders who, as everyone else is ready to ride off, suddenly say,
“Oh, wait, I forgot that I need to get gas”).Then I went and joined the others for breakfast.At our riders’ meeting, Dave said there would just be one big group for
the day.Fine by me; maybe
there’d be fewer u-turns. LOL.

Chris decided he
wasn’t riding this day.He wanted
to hang out with his wife and do some shopping.At least that was the official explanation.I think he was totally whupped.Ha.

An
interesting hood ornament one of the riders collected from the trail ... a
jackalope perhaps?

We hit the road about
8, heading south again down Highway 23.Buzzing
through the twisties, I noticed that several riders in front of me couldn’t
ride worth a damn on the pavement and were being sucked into corners by the
faster riders up front at a speed that exceeded their ability.We were hitting the north end of that stretch of 23 known as the Pig
Trail, which features a lot of 10, 15, and 20 mph switchbacks.The Tiger was humming along happily, well within its limits,
even with the Karoos, and I’d ridden most of these roads at much greater
speeds on my ZZR.But several of
the guys in front of me were blowing corner after corner, drifting across into
the opposing lane, clipping the inside line as if they thought they were on a
trail instead of a public road.

On a tight 20 mph
downhill left-hander, one of the KLR riders in front of me totally lost it.I figured he was a goner, as the side of the road there had little or no
runoff and dropped straight down 10 or 15 feet into a stand of trees.His rear tire locked up, and I watched as he went over the edge and
vanished.I hit my brakes, jumped
off, and ran over to see which tree he’d scarred for life by slamming into it,
only to find that, amazingly, he’d somehow ridden the bike down the steep (at
least 45-50 degree) slope and missed the trees.Say a little prayer, dude; you were lucky.We got him back on the road and got going again, with all those sloppy
riders perhaps moving a bit slower and safer now.

Soon we were off
pavement and on the trails again.We
didn’t get far, however, before our first offroad incident of the day.A KLR rider went to jump a rut in the trail and somehow managed to
activate his throttle lock.The
bike roared over the rut and targeted a deep ditch off to the side.At that point, a wise rider does one of three things, methinks: (1) bail
off and let the bike have its fun, (2) pull in the clutch and let the engine rev
the snot out of itself while you get things under control, or (3) hit the kill
switch.This guy rode it out.I didn’t see the accident, and it’s easy to sit here and say what he
should have done, when in reality these things happen so fast that it’s easy
to sit there with a deathgrip on the bars and let the bike take you for a tumble
… so I don’t really mean to sound too critical.I imagine, in retrospect, the rider feels pretty stupid, though.By the time I got there, he was flopping around on the ground much like a
squirrel someone had hit the day before (little nutcracker wasn’t very smart
to run out on the trail in front of 20 or 30 motorcycles).I saw him try to stand and fall back down.His knee was messed up pretty bad, but after 20 minutes or
so, he was able to get back on his bike.But
he was done for the day.He and
another rider went back to the motel, where the injured rider spent the rest of
the day with his knee on ice.I was
told that he’d recently had surgery on the knee … and now will probably be
looking at more.

Rider
down! Rider down! This guy accidentally engaged his throttle lock
and went for a wild ride that ended his weekend.

[Incidentally, the putz on the ground there who damaged his knee is none other
than Gary Miller, who I didn't know at the time. I've since been subjected
to all his stories about what a great rider he is. Yeah ... I see that. Hey,
Gary!]

The rest of the
day’s ride went well.Somewhere a
little Chihuahua dog ran out onto the road to challenge and chase every bike that roared
past.Fortunately, everyone managed
to miss the little guy.In Oark, we
stopped for gas, but after filling up only two bikes, the pump ran dry.So much for gas in Oark; guess we doubled their weekly fuel consumption.We had lunch there.All the
catfish you can eat or a hamburger.I
had the burger.Then it was back to
the trails, though Rich and I had about had enough and decided to call it quits
for the day at the first sign of pavement.We split off from the group and rode back to the hotel where hot showers
were necessary again to get some warmth back into our tired old bones.

The
Oark General Store and Cafe. All the catfish you can eat, but only a
few gallons of petrol.

Yours truly. Rich in the
background. Oark, Arkansas.

I was feeling pretty
good.Except for the one stupid
slip that first morning, the Tiger and I had kept up and gone pretty much everywhere the
smaller bikes went.I’d definitely learned a lot about riding offroad: reading
the trail, choosing a good line, staying on the gas at the right moments,
climbing over rock shelves, squaring it off by sliding the rear wheel around
corners, etc.A lot of the stuff we
rode through would have had me turning the bike around just a day before – and
maybe even now if it wasn’t for the fact that I was following other bikes.I recall one particular moment when the trail was almost completely
blocked by a rock slide.There was a tight trail around one side of the rock pile,
then the path went up onto a rock shelf and dropped down the other side.Because of the slide, you couldn’t see the drop until it was too late
to do anything but ride it out.It
was much too high for the Tiger – perhaps for the other bikes as well – but
someone had placed several logs on the other side of the drop so that you could
come down it safely (though it hardly seems that safe to an inexperienced trail
rider like myself, to tell the truth).I
remember coming down the drop, looking down at the logs I was riding across, and
thinking, “Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m doing this!”Of course, I was just following the bikes ahead of me.Out on my own, that would have probably been a time to turn around and
seek another route.Same for those
deep water crossings.On my own,
I’d have never had the balls (or sheer stupidity) to attempt them.

"Dude, I think I got my hand
wet..."

"Stand clear, I'm coming
through!"

"Hey, where is everybody?!?!"

Pretty
waterfall so deep in the woods that I'd never be able to find it again...

The
backroadstouring.org riders were fantastic.What a great group of guys!I
had such a fantastic time and will definitely be back for their ride in Arkansas
next year.Wild tigers couldn’t
keep me away.There’s also a
“Fall Colors Tour” dualsport ride in the fall and a Tiger rally in June,
both in Arkansas. (Google them if you're interested in learning more.)

Some
of the adventure riders ... yours truly to the extreme left.

Sunday,
27 Mar 05, Eureka Springs to OKC, 278 miles.

Sunday morning, I was
up before the sun.It was raining.And cold.Again.I packed the bike, skipped breakfast completely, and while most of the
other riders were just getting up and loading their bikes on trailers, I swung a
leg over el tigre and roared on outta there at the crack of dawn.My plan was to follow Highway 23 all the way south to I-40.If the weather improved and I was enjoying the ride, I’d continue south
from there, eventually catching Highway 71 into Mena, where I could take the
Talimena Drive over the Winding Stair Mountains and into Oklahoma, working
my way home via southeastern Oklahoma backroads (conserving the Karoos).If the weather worsened or stayed the same, I would just grab I-40 and
turn west, taking the quick route home.

Despite the cold and
rain, it was a nice ride that morning.I
was virtually the only thing moving on Highway 23, which is a great ride even
when it’s wet.The bike was
running smoothly.The Karoos were
gripping the pavement in the twisties exceptionally well – in fact, I think
they might be more confidence-inspiring on wet pavement than street tires.By the time I hit I-40, though, I decided I didn’t want to spend 5 or 6
hours getting home when a 2-3 hour direct route lay right before me.I hadn’t eaten breakfast and could easily be home for what the hobbits
call “elevensies” if I took the interstate.I hit the on ramp and wicked the Tiger up to 80, where the front tire
wobble that used to start at about 65 or 70 was now just barely noticeable.Electric vest cranked up, heated grips doing their thing, the
only thing cold was my toes.

The
famous Pig Trail on Arkansas Highway 23.

At a gas station just
across the Oklahoma state line, an attractive woman filling up her car at the other
pump looked over and said, “Aren’t you cold?”“Nah, I’m fine,” I told her, and added that even a rainy day on the
motorcycle beats sitting at home or in the office any day of the week.She just stared at me like I was nuts.I didn’t pass a single motorcycle all the way home.It quit raining on me just west of Lake Eufaula, but the sun didn’t put
in an appearance.Cruising into my
neighborhood, there was no one out and about to witness the triumphant
adventurer’s weary return (there never is).The wife and daughter were happy to see me, though.And, oh yeah, Lucky Dog got pretty excited when I came down the driveway,
too.

Three days later, as
I write this, the Tiger is still plastered with mud and grime, sitting in the
garage next to the clean, shiny ZZR1200.The
Kawasaki seems to have shrunk back against the far wall of the garage, as if
eyeing an uncouth, pigpen-loving sibling and saying, “Eww, don’t get any of
that on me!”The Tiger has that
smug look about it again, as if it’s thinking, “If only you knew, Mr
Sportbike, if only you knew…”

First email I sent
when I got on the computer was to the Gregmeister.It boiled down to “You should have been there” (but might have
included a choice adjective or two).

Many thanks to the
guys who organized the ride.And
thanks to all the other riders.What
a great bunch of trail brothers they are, always looking out for one another and
doing whatever necessary to get a fellow rider back up and running.
Thanks to those from whom I borrowed some of the photos above (ummm, without
actually asking -- sorry). I had such a wonderful time and will definitely be back for more.Thanks to Rich’s wife, Ashley, for rum and Cokes (I really couldn’t
tell it was diet Coke).Kudos to Rich for riding that little 250 all the way from OKC
and back (99% of these guys trailer their bikes) – brother Long Rider indeed.

Next adventure is the
canyons around Moab, Utah with Chris and Rich (and maybe Greg) at the end of
April.Everyone says the Tiger’s
too big to make it over the White Rim Trail.We’ll see.I’m betting
the Tiger can do it … just needs the right rider sitting up there shouting
encouragement.